Andrew Puzder has withdrawn as President Donald Trump’s choice for labor secretary, a source close to Puzder and a senior administration official said.

The decision came as Senate Republicans told the White House he was losing support, a senior GOP source said, adding there were four firm Republican no votes and possibly up to 12.

Puzder needs at least 50 votes to pass with the tie-breaking vote of Vice President Mike Pence, and Republicans only hold control of 52 seats.

Puzder, the CEO of the company that owns the Hardee’s and Carl’s Jr. fast food chains, has faced fierce opposition mostly from Democrats in part related to his position on labor issues as well as the fact that he employed an undocumented housekeeper.

“No matter how you cut it, there is no worse pick for labor secretary than Andrew Puzder, and I’m encouraged my Republican colleagues are starting to agree,” the New York Democrat said. “He does not belong anywhere near the Labor Department, let alone at the head of it. Puzder’s disdain for the American worker, the very people he would be responsible for protecting, is second to none.”

THE COMPANY RUN by Andy Puzder, who President Trump has nominated for secretary of labor, ran an illegal wage-fixing scheme for managers at his company’s restaurants, according to a class-action lawsuit filed in California superior court last week.

Puzder is the CEO of the vast Carl Karcher Enterprises (CKE) fast-food chain. One former and one current Carl’s Jr. shift leader allege that franchisees – which Puzder has repeatedly described as independent businesses — colluded with one another to prevent managers from moving between restaurants.

As alleged, the scheme also appears to violate federal law under the Sherman Antitrust Act, as an illegal restraint of trade. That would be a felony punishable by a $1 million fine and up to 10 years in prison for individuals charged.

But the class-action suit filed February 8 in Los Angeles, part of a pattern of alleged labor violations at Carl Karcher Enterprises (CKE) restaurant chains, speaks to the very issues that Puzder would oversee at the Labor Department. Puzder has already proven himself an outspoken critic of the minimum wage, expanded overtime laws and workplace safety rules, and the case charges that under Puzder’s leadership, CKE again violated worker rights.

The lawsuit attempts to show that CKE, which owns the Carl’s Jr., Hardee’s, Green Burrito, and Red Burrito brands, undermined workers’ ability to thrive in the free market that Puzder cherishes so much in public.

AFTER being delayed four times already, the Senate on Thursday is expected to consider the nomination of Andrew Puzder to lead the Department of Labor. The department’s job is to protect workers by ensuring minimum-wage and overtime payment, safe and healthy workplaces, and maintaining critical workforce statistics. If Puzder is confirmed as Secretary, DOL’s fundamental enforcement role will be in jeopardy.

There is an epidemic of wage theft in the United States. A survey of more than 4,000 low-wage workers conducted by the National Employment Law Project indicated that more than 1 million employees were not paid minimum wage, not paid overtime and not given the breaks that they are entitled to. Among those low-wage workers surveyed:

• 26 percent were paid below minimum wage in the previous week, and fully 60 percent of those workers were underpaid by $1 an hour or more.

• 75 percent were not paid overtime after working more than 40 hours in the previous week.

• Nearly 75 percent were not paid for “off the clock” hours worked beyond their daily shift.

• An overwhelming majority (86 percent) were not provided meal or rest breaks.

Undocumented workers are by far the hardest hit by wage theft — nearly half report having been victimized in the past week. These are not simple arithmetic errors but part of a conscious effort by some employers to skirt wage and hour laws designed to help all workers — regardless of race, gender and immigration status.

One of DOL’s main functions is to combat wage theft through investigation and enforcement. If Puzder becomes secretary, he can make his own decisions on what or how strongly to enforce. How many investigators should be hired? Which cases should DOL litigate? Puzder could de-prioritize immigrant workers, or worse, require workers to disclose their immigration status as part of the investigation process. He could decide that any fast food case will fall lower on the priority scale or simply be ignored.

Puzder spent his career in fast food, running Hardee’s and Carl’s Junior restaurants, where the business model relies on paying poverty wages. He opposes raising the minimum wage and basic benefits like paid sick days. He has even complained about having to give employees rest and meal breaks. His company has relied on hyper-sexualized images of women to sell burgers, which the marketing department justified in a 2011 news release by saying, “Ugly ones don’t sell burgers.”

When President Donald Trump nominated St. Louis’ Andy Puzder to serve as the secretary of labor, it was a slap in the face to millions of working people in this country. On the Washington University campus, it hit especially hard.

Why? Not only is Puzder the chief executive of the parent company of Hardee’s and Carl’s Jr., fast-food restaurant chains long associated with paying people as little as possible and in many instances breaking the law by failing to pay cooks and cashiers for hours they worked, but he is also a graduate of the Washington University School of Law. He currently serves on the law school’s National Council and is a donor to the university.

From our perspective as working people at Washington University — one of us an adjunct faculty member for 19 years and the other a janitor for more than 22 years — we have serious concerns about Puzder’s nomination.

While it may seem unlikely, we have a lot in common with the tens of thousands of underpaid workers in St. Louis and tens of millions of workers nationwide — including the cooks and cashiers at Puzder’s restaurants — all of us struggling to make ends meet and create a better life for our families.

We live in the kind of economy that Puzder wants to maintain — one in which workers are underpaid, have few benefits and little stability, and are constantly threatened by outsourcing or automation. It is also an economy rigged for those at the top, who make millions and do not even have to play by the most basic rules: Puzder even admitted he failed to pay taxes for five years for a housekeeper employed by his family, all while he rakes in millions.

Janitors and adjunct faculty understand the challenges that all underpaid workers face. But as union members, we also know that we are stronger when we come together with our co-workers for a better future. Last year, adjunct faculty negotiated our first contract with the university after we joined Service Employees International Union Local 1. Our contract guarantees increased wages, good benefits and the stability that many working families in our rigged economy do not have. Washington U. janitors have been able to bargain for fair pay and benefits as members of Local 1. We have a voice on the job, but Puzder wants to silence working people like us.

Puzder knows full well how so much of our economy is built on underpaid jobs. Because his restaurant franchises keep pay so low, taxpayers have to put up $247 million per year to cover public benefits to help employees’ families make it week to week. Puzder does not have workers’ best interests at heart, but Trump has nominated him to run the federal agency charged with keeping American workers safe, ensuring they don’t face discrimination or wage theft, and promoting good jobs.

Torrance Chambers has been calling Andy Puzder for weeks to talk to him about a problem with his paycheck from the Hardee’s restaurant where he works in Birmingham, Alabama. Ordinarily, Chambers wouldn’t bother the CEO of the fast-food chain’s parent company, CKE, Inc., but he claims his shift leader, store manager and several higher-ups told him no one else could help. Chambers said his store issues paychecks only in the form of a prepaid Visa debit card — and it comes with fees. He’d prefer to get a paper check or a direct deposit, the way he has at other jobs.

“In order to get the money out the card, you have to go to the ATM, and the one I have to go to, they charge $3.95 for every transaction I have,” said Chambers. He said he’s been charged different fees for using the card in stores and for paying his bills, and there’s no option to get his full paycheck at any particular bank or store without being charged.

“Including food and gas and everything, in a week, total, I’m out $80 [just on transaction fees]. And I’m only getting paid roughly $250 a week,” he said. These fees mean that Chambers’ real wages are significantly less than the national minimum wage required by law, $7.25 an hour.

Having received no return call from Puzder, Chambers filed a complaint with the U.S. Department of Labor on January 25, 2017, alleging minimum-wage violations related to the cards, as well as other problems at the store.

CKE did not respond to queries related to this article.

It’s not the first such complaint against the company, as a 2014 Department of Labor investigation found that the company’s use of debit cards violated minimum wage laws. The agency ordered CKE to pay $2,071.98 to an undisclosed number of employees, again at a Hardee’s in Alabama, for similarly issuing cards that incurred fees. Investigation documents state outright that the company refused to pay the money, stating it would mean “changing the payroll practices of the company,” but it is unclear how the case was resolved or if any changes to the payroll cards were ever made.

CKE is one of many employers now paying with plastic. Prepaid debit cards are a common way to pay employees at American mega-employers like Walmart and Home Depot, as well as many other burger chains such as McDonald’s, Burger King and Sonic Drive-In. Almost half of U.S. states pay their government employees with cards. The cards are usually offered as an option for those employees who don’t have bank accounts and want to avoid high fees at check-cashing locations.

According to a 2016 report by Restaurant Opportunities Centers (ROC) United, an advocacy group for restaurant employees, 7.4 million American workers received their payroll via debit card in 2015, and that number is expected to rise to 12.2 million by 2019. The cards are popular with some employees and very popular with payroll companies, who see huge savings by going paperless. The ROC United report found, for instance, that Darden Restaurants, the parent chain of Olive Garden, Yard House and LongHorn Steak House restaurants, saved $2.75 per check per pay period by going to plastic, saving the company $5 million a year.

In New York City, Deyanira Del Río, co-director of the New Economy Project, which helped implement new state rules regarding payroll card use, said that in surveying New York state workers, NEP, Retail Action Project and NYPIRG found two egregious problems that she compared directly to what Chambers said he experienced with Hardee’s in Alabama: Some workers could not access their full pay without paying some kind of fee; and workers said they were coerced or pressured by management into taking the card even if there were other options like direct deposit or a paper check. Chambers said he was unaware if any other option existed, because multiple managers informed him he could not have a paper check or direct deposit.

Southern California is known for its sunny weather, beautiful beaches, and a few bustling cities. But soon it will get a dubious distinction – Carpinteria business owner and U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) nominee Andrew Puzder.

To call Donald Trump’s Cabinet nominations controversial would be an understatement. It is no secret that many of Trump’s nominees have connections with corporations whose profit-driven interests are directly at odds with the federal agencies Trump has selected them to lead. In that regard, Trump’s selection of Andrew Puzder to lead Labor is no different from many of his other choices.

However, Puzder’s nomination also represents a major broken promise to working families. After all, Trump made protecting American workers a central theme of his campaign and his plan for his first 100 days in office. Despite this promise, Trump chose Puzder – a man who prefers automated robots to human employees – to be the primary advocate for workers in his administration. Instead of a labor secretary who supports working families, Trump wants to give workers an anti-labor secretary.

For more than 16 years, Puzder has served as the president and CEO of CKE Restaurants, the parent company of fast food chains Hardee’s and Carl’s Jr. headquartered in Southern California’s own Carpinteria. Although Puzder claims he will “fiercely”defend workers as secretary of labor, his financial ties incentivize him to give preferential treatment to large corporations like his own. After weeks of delay, Puzder released his plans to avoid potential conflicts of interest by divesting his CKE assets. This task is proving to be a complex one for the nominee and may take him about six months to complete. Regardless of how Puzder handles his conflicts, all workers deserve to know what type of leader he will be.

A closer look at CKE’s track record on labor rights is revealing. Puzder has garnered a reputation as an outspoken critic of many basic worker protections like meaningful minimum wageincreases and overtime pay. But Puzder isn’t just a critic of labor laws — his own restaurants have violated them. For example, 108 investigations at CKE-affiliated restaurants dating back to 2004 resulted in the businesses agreeing to pay $153,921 in back wages for more than 900 employees, mostly from violations of minimum wage and overtime laws.

It is also unlikely that the health and safety of working people will be a priority for Puzder at DOL, based on his track record. According to a recent review of U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration’s workplace inspection data, Hardee’s and Carl’s Jr. locations incurred at least 98 safety violations during Puzder’s tenure at CKE — including 36 “serious” violations that could result in death or grave physical harm to an employee.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer called on President Donald Trump to withdraw the nomination of Andrew Puzder, to head the Labor Department, citing his record as a business executive and his position on labor issues.

“They ought to withdraw Mr. Puzder before he further embarrasses this administration and further exposes the hypocrisy of President Trump, who says one thing to the American worker and does another,” the New York Democrat said Thursday at a news conference, referencing Puzder, the CEO of CKE Restaurants, which runs Hardee’s and Carl’s Jr.

Schumer said Puzder’s record contradicts campaign promises Trump made to the working class.

“You could not have picked a worse nominee to uphold these goals than Andew Puzder,” he said. “Everything in his career is antithetical to the goals of the Department of Labor.”

Puzder’s confirmation hearing, which has been rescheduled multiple times, is currently slated for February 16 with the Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions.

Sen. Patty Murray, ranking member on that committee, said at the news conference, that if Puzder does not withdraw he should expect Democrats and workers to “to scrutinize his record clearly and speak out loudly about what we see concerns us to make sure that this nomination process is as thorough and rigorous as possible.”

Workers at the shipyard where I work are like most others in Maine. We get up every day, we go to work and we do our best for our co-workers and our employer. We work hard. We just ask that in return we get a fair shake: wages to provide for our family, a safe workplace, rights on the job and a chance to continue to improve our lives. That’s not asking for too much. This is the basic promise of the American dream.

Key to delivering on this promise is a strong Department of Labor. The Department of Labor was created by Congress over 100 years ago, and historically, the secretary of labor has sought to improve the lives of workers, by ensuring that employers deliver fair wages, safe working conditions and ladders of opportunity.

Unfortunately, the current nominee for secretary of labor, Andrew Puzder, doesn’t share this vision. His track record clearly indicates he has no interest in honoring this mission and advancing the lives of workers. Instead, Puzder, as CEO of CKE Restaurants (owner of the Hardees and Carl’s Jr. chains), has proven that he is more interested in squeezing profits out of workers than in honoring their needs for safe work and decent pay.

Soon, the Senate Health, Education, Labor & Pensions Committee will hold a hearing to question Puzder. We join thousands of working people in Maine in urging Susan Collins, our senior senator and a member of the committee, to question him rigorously, and to vote “no” on his confirmation. Collins has a history of taking our concerns seriously, and working on behalf of hard-working families. This Cabinet position is vital to keeping our people healthy and our economy strong.

Among the questions we would pose:

• Puzder has characterized people who work in the fast-food industry as “the best of the worst. … the bottom of the pool.” The Department of Labor is there to protect the workers who are the most vulnerable, and to help them know their rights and stand up to abusive employers. Will he protect these workers, and reach out to help them gain skills and find the ladder up?

• Puzder has been outspoken in his opposition to raising the federal minimum wage from the poverty-level rate of $7.25 an hour. A Bloomberg BNA analysis of Labor Department investigative data found wage violations at nearly 60 percent of Hardees and Carl’s Jr. restaurants, meaning the company purposefully made people work without pay. Can Puzder ensure that he will work to raise wages for millions of workers? What is the justification for not increasing the minimum wage to match increases in costs of things like food at his own restaurants, groceries and housing?